Electrical circuits use a variety of over-power protection elements. Some common examples may include fuses, circuit breakers, polymer-based thermal fuses and/or the like. Fiber optic technology does not have similar technologies that are readily available. In some cases, fuse-like functions have been defined for optical fibers. However, these components typically have relatively slow response times. Thus, such components may not be effective at protecting certain components that require fast response times in order to be effectively protected. Furthermore, some optical components operate at power levels that are too low to cause fuse-like protection devices to effectively operate.
Meanwhile, optical data rates continue to increase and associated detector bandwidth becomes larger and larger. High bandwidth detectors require reduced dimensions and make the detectors much more susceptible to damage at higher optical power levels. High bandwidth detectors are also typically relatively expensive, so each damage event can have a large programmatic impact. Expensive test equipment having expensive optical receivers (sometimes multiple such receivers per assembly) may often be the last item in a fiber experimental test bed that can contain multiple optical fiber amplifiers. The presence of multiple optical amplifiers in a system can create large power bursts if the power at the input to the system chain is altered suddenly. This could cause instant destruction of sensitive photoreceivers and terminate the system, while costing a large amount of money.
To address some of these drawbacks, solutions have been sought in the area of high speed optical fiber technology. The provision of high speed, low cost optical protection devices may therefore be of interest.